A Laid-Back Puzzle Game that makes Traffic seem Calm and Satisfying
Traffic fills me with despair and hatred for the world, so I’d be more than happy if it worked like it does in Avenue Escape. In the game, there’s an invisible conductor, flying high above the traffic. They tap the top of each car and van, letting them know when it’s okay to move. The people in the cars can just kick back and relax until it’s their time to get tapped.
Ah, I can dream. For now, I have to make do with the fantasy world of Avenue Escape, a kind of puzzle game where I get to play the god-like traffic conductor. With a single cursor and the A button, I can dictate who moves and when, solving congestion that would make the M25 weep, and dealing with knotty road networks that make Swindon look well-organised.
Stick-shift Driving
Success in Avenue Escape is, oddly enough, a bit like playing a game of Pick Up Sticks. There are directional arrows on the top of the traffic in Avenue Escape, and they make it very clear where the vehicle intends to go. So you need to be picking up the stick – sorry, tapping the car – which has the clearest path to escape. By removing them from the roads, another car might become free, and so on. Eventually, the traffic is gone and the level is done.
In the opening levels, the order is pretty much all you need to consider. It soon becomes second nature, and you can solve puzzles at speed. I had a magnificent time tapping cars as fast as I could, creating a series of close shaves that made it look like I was orchestrating a synchronised drive. It’s not difficult at all – and more on the level of challenge later – but it was a hugely enjoyable process.
Avenue Escape, being 50 levels in length, was never just going to stop there. First, children crossing roads are introduced. I love that children, following the highway code, are the enemy in Avenue Escape. You end up cursing them as they trot back and forth on zebra crossings. There’s also the fascinating development that crashing into a child is relatively okay. You have three heart pips, so you can crash into three children before resetting the level. It’s barely even a slap on the wrist.
Won’t Someone Think of the Children?
Then there are traffic lights. They’re not too dissimilar to the deathwish kids, if we’re being honest. They are on a rotation of green and red lights (amber doesn’t exist in the world of Avenue Escape), and that rotation lines up with the kids. You’re waiting for green lights and kids on the pavement to coincide. Then it’s tappy-tapping time, as you see how many cars you can get through before the red light shows again.
Avenue Escape, it should be said, is not a difficult game. There’s no timer, star-ratings or highscores, so you can relax and tap the roof of vans in your own time. We’ve already mentioned the heart pips which are a valuable safety net, and the game is generous about whether you’ve hit-and-run a kid (not something we imagined we would type). You can give them a glancing blow and Avenue Escape gives you a big thumbs-up.
The puzzles don’t escalate in difficulty. If anything, it’s the tiniest of gradients upwards. There might be a few more cars, a few more obstacles. There might be more awkward cars, with loops on their roofs rather than just straight lines. But you can solve all of them with the same pattern: get rid of the easy, straightforward cars first, then go vehicle-by-vehicle, checking whether they can move now. Some might require a bit of patience, thanks to the kids and traffic lights, but if you have that patience then challenge evaporates.
Part of me finds this a disappointment. It doesn’t take much thought to invent other variables that would have made the puzzles more interesting. What about moving obstacles, crossing multiple roads, like tram networks? What about vehicles that move at different speeds, so you have to anticipate a slow dustbin lorry, for example? I can’t help feeling that the pickings are slim when it wouldn’t have taken much work to fill them out. These would have added more considerations for a player, disrupting that routine that I was talking about.
Sometimes you Need a Little Traffic-Calming
But there’s the other side of me who’s crossing their arms and shaking their head at the other guy. That side really appreciated the laid-back tempo of Avenue Escape. I could put my feet up on the table and slowly tap away at cars without thought. There’s a natural joy in seeing the roads clear; suddenly, more cars are brought into play and the puzzle naturally evolves.
You can also set your own objectives, if you’re that kind of player. I would try to fit as many cars through a single green light as possible, and there wasn’t a particularly heinous punishment if I failed. The same would go for the level itself: I’d see how swiftly I could clear it as a whole, giving myself an invisible star rating.
Even that half of me would have appreciated a few improvements. Avenue Escape would have been an even better game with star ratings, sub-objectives (how can you leave this car to the very last?) and a few extra obstacles. As it stands, Avenue Escape was a pleasant diversion, but it could have been a longer, more scenic trip.
Oh, and we should mention the music. It’s only a single track, but it’s immense. I’ve still got it rattling round my head as I write this review, and there’s not much more of a commendation than that.
Avenue Escape is the most fun I’ve had in a traffic jam. It’s short of greatness, mostly thanks to a lack of obstacles and challenge, but it’s also a surprisingly calming puzzle game. I’m going to be sat in my next traffic jam, mentally tapping each car to say, hoping that they move.
Important Links
Untangle The Streets In Avenue Escape – https://www.thexboxhub.com/untangle-the-streets-in-avenue-escape/
Buy from the Xbox Store – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/avenue-escape/9NCMTH821LD4/0010
